'This is my calling...'

Sunday

Apr 9, 2017 at 7:00 AM

By John Lowe The Daily Jeffersonian

NEW CONCORD -- The inauguration of Dr. Susan S. Hasseler, the 21st president of Muskingum University, unfolded Friday afternoon before a full house that included her three predecessors, a state senator (Troy Balderson) and a U.S. congressman (Bill Johnson). Alumni, students, staff and community members filled the Anne C. Steele Center to hear a vision for the university from the new president.

Having already claimed a distinguished educational career, Dr. Hasseler had an answer for those who might wonder why she would take on the challenge of steering a university.

"My response is this is my calling, to lead and serve a university community as president," she said. "I am called at this time to be in this place -- this remarkable community that is Muskingum."

What did she mean by a calling?

She quoted the Presbyterian theologian, Frederick Buechner: "The place where you are called is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

That doesn't mean satisfying a personal ambition.

"The deep gladness that Buechner describes goes beyond personal fulfillment," she said. "It is embodied in our connections with others, in a world which is hungry for that connection. With such simple elegance, Buechner says that we find our calling, our purpose and our true meaning in life by engaging with and serving others and the world."

Dr. Hasseler believes strongly in forging connections and the public has welcomed her overtures. During the months since, and even before, she assumed the helm at Muskingum, she has been embraced by both the university and the larger community.

She charmed the Village of New Concord last spring, for example, when she attended the basketball game in which John Glenn High School won the state championship. She has earned the admiration of students by greeting them and speaking with them on walks about the campus.

Dr. Hasseler has compassion and curiosity, said her husband, Ken Hasseler, in preliminary remarks.

"I have heard her say, 'I see students on the margins. I want to figure out a way to stretch the margins to include them.' And she has," he said. "She is an educational entrepreneur."

In the months since she became president last summer, she has discovered she is now part of an extraordinary community, she said.

"I have been struck by the many ways in which we embrace our calling to engage and serve, to create and explore."

To carry on that tradition, Muskingum must continue to educate the whole person for the whole world, she said. It must help students to mature intellectually, spiritually, socially and physically so that they may build "their capacity to create, explore, engage, connect with and transform the world."

Dr. Hasseler said the university will continue to provide new experiences for its students. It will expand experiential learning of all types with:

Hands-on, original research,

Creative activities,

Internships,

Community service,

Study abroad, and

Campus leadership opportunities.

"We will continue to invest in the people who bring this living and learning community to life every day," she said. "[We recognize] that every person on our campus is an educator and that our students learn from everyone they engage with -- on these hills, online and out in the world.

"We have only just begun to write the next chapter in Muskingum's story -- and in the stories our students and alumni will write upon the world. I look forward to writing that chapter with you."

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